


Like I Love You

by KittyCatriona (War_Worn_Lipstick)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Lots of dialogue, M/M, phil's kind of an asshole at first, so much dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7772947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/War_Worn_Lipstick/pseuds/KittyCatriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Lester was easy to please. A cup of coffee each morning, pancakes maybe, anime and a sunrise. No one ever worried their jokes would fall flat on him. If he got even a single text from someone he loved in a day, he moved without anxiety. Invites, no matter what for, made him glow. </p><p>It’s interesting then, how he was never pleased with Dan Howell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like I Love You

Phil Lester was easy to please. A cup of coffee each morning, pancakes maybe, anime and a sunrise. No one ever worried their jokes would fall flat on him. If he got even a single text from someone he loved in a day, he moved without anxiety. Invites, no matter what for, made him glow. 

It’s interesting then, how he was never pleased with Dan Howell. 

“Weren’t you going to film that last night?” Phil asked when he saw Dan setting up the cameras in the lounge. 

Dan looked sheepish. “I may have gone on a Wikiventure instead.”

Phil rolled his eyes and moved to leave. 

“Ask me anything about sea cucumbers,” Dan grinned. 

“Where can I find one?” Phil asked with a sigh. 

Dan frowned. “In the ocean.”

“I meant, what oceans?” 

“Oh,” Dan said, his frown deepening. “That’s… I don’t know that.” 

“Alright, then,” Phil said, and Dan could hear the judgment in his voice. 

“But when they’re scared…” Dan started as Phil left the room. His voice got louder as he knew Phil was getting farther away. “…they expel their internal organs at their enemies! And then they regenerate them in a couple of weeks!”

Phil didn’t respond, so Dan looked at his video equipment. He stared into the camera, which wasn’t on, and said, dead-pan, “Watch him use that fact in one of his videos a week from now.” 

No, Dan could not figure out why Phil never seemed to care as much about Dan as Dan cared about Phil. They were best friends, or so Dan thought, but still Dan could not bring himself to simply talk to Phil about his feelings. He was too frightened. He worried bringing it up would only give Phil reason to leave, and Dan, well, Dan didn’t think he could live without Phil. 

Some time passed, though, and the topic was raised anyhow. There was thunder and lightening outside, loud and flashing in the night, and Dan thought nothing could be more like a cliché than their feelings coming out during a storm.

It had been a simple phrase, in reference to Phil not inviting Dan to join him and their other friends to go out drinking the night before, that started the fight.  

“I didn’t think you’d want to come,” Phil had said. “It didn’t really seem like your thing.”

“Who even are you to judge what is ‘my thing’ or not?” Dan shot back, and Phil’s eyebrows shot up. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Dan snorted. “It means maybe if you actually cared about me, you would have known that I like going out with Louise and PJ no matter the outside circumstance. Or, if you cared, you’d have known to at least ask me if I wanted to go out.” 

That’s when the shouting happened. 

Dan accused Phil of attempting to edge him out of Phil’s life. 

“If you want me gone, just tell me!”

Phil accused Dan of acting like a child. 

“I’m sorry, do you want me to coddle you? Do you want me to take baby steps with you until you learn to function like a normal human being?”

Bombs were dropped, swears cut through the air, and they drifted apart, but nothing hit harder than Dan shouting, “I know you don’t love me like I love you, Phil.”

There was silence afterwards, drop dead, and Dan clamped his teeth around his lower lip, regretting his words instantly. 

Phil blinked once, twice, three times, cleared his throat, shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Dan,” he eventually said, “what do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Dan whispered, and even then his voice shook. “Forget it. I didn’t say anything.” 

“No,” Phil said, and his voice was surprisingly calm. “Tell me what you mean.” 

It took a lot of breathing, a lot of thought, and a lot of time (what felt to them both like decades), but eventually Dan worked up the guts to spit out, “I love you, Phil. And it hurts because I know you can never give me that back. But, I always think, you could at least live up to what it means to be a friend, right? And then I’m just disappointed again, because you don’t.” 

Phil didn’t reply. He stared at Dan, stared at the wreck he’d created—Dan’s hair was rumpled over his forehead, and his eyes were rimmed in red and shadows, and he was slouching more than usual, making himself small, and he refused to look into Phil’s eyes. 

In silence Phil went for a walk, no umbrella, and Dan’s knees hit the floor.

He didn’t want to move, but he knew if Phil were to come back, he would look pitiful, or rather, even more pitiful, fallen the way he was. So after almost twenty minutes, Dan pushed himself back onto his feet, numb and tearless, and collapsed into his bed. 

Dan fell asleep without realizing, and that’s how Phil, damp from the storm, found him. Face-first in a pillow. 

“Hey, Dan,” Phil said, nudging Dan’s shoulder lightly. “Hey, wake up.” 

Mumbling incoherently, not even trying to form words, Dan tilted his head slightly and looked at Phil out of the far corner of his eye. His face was still largely buried in the pillow.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Phil shook his head. Dan watched a droplet of water slip down his neck. “Don’t be. Can we talk?”

Dan groaned and sat up, scooting over slightly so Phil could sit on the edge of the bed. He folded his hands in his lap and tried not to think too much about what was to come. 

“Dan,” Phil started, and then he stopped, took a deep breath, shook his head, and started again. “Dan, look. I never meant to make you feel like I didn’t appreciate you, or like you weren’t good enough for me.” 

Dan glanced over at him, easing up a little. 

“I just… I thought I could distance myself from you and that would make it better.”

It was quiet for a moment, so Dan urged him on. “Make what better?”

There were tears brimming at Phil’s eyes. “You have to understand,” he said, and his voice was weak and wimpery, “I didn’t think there was any way—I didn’t think—”

“Phil?” Dan put his hand on Phil’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I won’t be mad.”

“I know you won’t,” Phil attempted to laugh, but it just made the tears fall down his cheeks. “I just feel so guilty for everything I’ve put you through.”

Dan wanted to say something but didn’t know what. He didn’t want to tell Phil it was okay again, because, truthfully, it wasn’t. Dan had no reason as of yet to forgive Phil for treating him like shit. He stayed silent and just waited for Phil to go on himself. 

“I thought you’d never love me,” Phil blurted, and Dan blinked. 

“What?” he asked.

“I thought you’d never love me like I love you. So I tried to distance myself from you, thinking I could get over it.” 

“But you’ve always been this way,” Dan said slowly, processing the new information. It didn’t seem to fit right in his mind. 

Phil laughed through the tears again and looked over at Dan. “I always liked you, Dan,” he said after a moment. 

“You—seriously?” Dan gaped.

Nodding, Phil said, “Yeah. I mean, one of the only reasons I singled you out on Twitter was because I liked your profile pic.” 

“Oh,” Dan said.  

“Yeah,” Phil nodded some more. 

“What,” Dan tried to breathe. 

They sat together, neither of them speaking, for about five minutes, until Phil said he was going to dry off and go to bed. 

“See you in the morning?” Phil said, and Dan thought it was strange that it was a question. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Of course.” 

The following day, Dan woke up before Phil. He waited at the dining room table, daydreaming a bit because he hadn’t slept much after their conversation, for Phil to come clambering into the kitchen. 

When he finally did, they met eyes with a sort of uncertain tension. Dan wanted to make a move, he did, but part of him was still saying it was a bad idea. Phil wanted to make a move, but he was afraid Dan was still mad at him for being such an asshole. 

“Is there coffee?” Phil asked.

“No, I didn’t make any. You do that, and I can get cereal ready?”

“Yeah,” Phil smiled. 

“Cool,” Dan smiled back. 

They sat on the couch, closer together than usual, as they ate, watching some re-run of a cooking show. When both of their bowls were empty, Dan took them to the sink. He sunk down beside Phil again, rigid, knowing something was coming. 

Phil leaned forward, looked Dan in the eye, and said, “Is this what we want?”

“I think it is,” Dan said. 

Dan tugged on Phil’s pajama shirt, then, and dragged him in for a hug. He reveled in Phil’s warmth.

Before long Phil was pulling away, but he didn’t go far. In fact, they were closer now than before, their faces only inches apart, eyes searching each other’s faces, lingering on each other’s lips. 

“Is it what we want?” Dan clarified. 

“I’m almost positive,” Phil whispered, and then he closed the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in the last half hour of my shift at work and then posted it when i got home *shrug* 
> 
> if you liked it let me know? authors thrive on feedback it makes us wanna author more things:D


End file.
